a list of some mods i use to make the game more difficult/realistic/less annoying without making it boring:
louder rainy sound - makes it harder to hear during storms
tougher legendary enemies
more common weather - more rain, fog, rad storms, etc. certain conditions make it harder to hear/see/live, plus the variance is refreshing
rad storm survivor - rad storms are actually a threat
arbitration
settlement raiding mod
high level scale - this mod pleases me. i see a lot more red skulls on my hud
realistic headshots - with "high level scale" and "tougher legendary enemies" it makes fighting would-be bullet-sponge enemies more satisfying
rebalancer - I used this to make power armor, food, chems, etc. less effective, on top of other things
durable vertibirds and betterVertibirdSound
aggressive synth voice overhaul - you know what's not intimidating is hearing wall-e shout out his sitrep and tactics every 2 seconds
nuclear cena
darker nights
weapon balance overhaul - almost everything does more damage to some degree, but everything feels better
fallout 4 loot overhaul - lots harder to find the good stuff, not as much crap where it doesn't belong
a list of the mods i've used in an attempt to make the game more difficult/realistic but don't recommend:
hunger and thirst mod - makes all food/drink have no effect other than being required for survival. crap starvation and thirst debuffs
no essential NPCs - my forgetin provisioners bro what the forget i should have thought that stuff through
nick got smooth jazz - wasn't ready for this level of realism
better explosives - explosives are too common tOO MUCH DAMAGE TOO MUCH DAMAGE TOO MUCH DAMAGE